Learning more about assisted, senior living

COLDWATER — Joyce Fosdick scoots around in her wheelchair and asks a Masonville House employee where she is heading off to before continuing to scoot down the lobby.

She passes the daily menu board, notices it at the last second and goes in reverse to get a good glance at the full menu.

Later on in the day she is with two other elderly ladies on the computers in the back trying to make a puzzle.

"I had mixed emotions about it here at first," Fosdick said. "I've made some friends and it's not so bad."

She lives at the Masonville House senior assisted living.

The question for most seniors is how do you know when it's time to go to assisted living, senior living or a nursing home and what does it entail?

Angela Salesman, a social services director at Maple Lawn Medical Care and Rehabilitation Facility, said a nursing home provides skilled care with nurses always on staff and always direct access to a physician. The nursing home is usually covered by Medicare or Medicaid insurance, while assisted living is usually all private.

"Assisted living is for someone who just really isn't safe home alone, or wants to be with others and have daily meals and actives," Salesman said. "You can be up walking around, but you need supervision."

At the Masonville House they have three meals a day, activities — the big hit being bingo — as well as other community-oriented things to do.

"Assisted living is still new — some people don't like the thought of it because they think it's like an old nursing home with multiple people in a room and bad food," Resident Director of Masonville House Dawn Carr said. "We have evolved. We let the seniors to do as much as they can or want to."

Carr said they encourage them to do as much as they can themselves or else "they go downhill fast if you do it all." Still, the care can include laundry, help with taking medicine, cleaning rooms and everything in between.

Senior homes are basically just retirement or senior communities were people live on their own.

Extremely low temperatures can be very difficult for the elderly, which is one reason Masonville House offers month-to-month rooms. Carr said there are some people who don't want to live on their own and get grociers during the winter, so they just stay for those months. Carr does have some residents that still have cars and go run errands by themselves.

Both nursing homes and assisted living will have guests for a very short amount of time if they just came out of surgery or something happened for which they need intensive care before heading back home.

Page 2 of 2 - "One of the best parts of my job is seeing some people come in here so ill and disoriented, then seeing them come back to say hi after rehab and it's like 'oh my gosh,' to see their improvements," Salesman said.